


The Dragon Master

by NocturnoCulto



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Dragons, Fantasy, M/M, Magic, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2017-04-12
Packaged: 2018-09-26 03:29:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9860276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NocturnoCulto/pseuds/NocturnoCulto
Summary: In a war-torn world, the Kingdom of Laudinum is facing an even more terrible threat than war itself. Dragons, creatures once believed to be only mythological, are attacking the realm, forcing its inhabitants into a hopeless fight. Queen Mary fights alongside her subjects until she is killed in one of the attacks.Alone and bereaved, her husband, Prince John Watson, undertakes a long journey through foreign countries to find the 'Dragon Master', a supposedly legendary immortal man who has the power to defeat dragons. But who is the mysterious Dragon Master? And will he accept to help John?





	1. Auld Lang Syne

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone!
> 
> Let me be honest with you all: I don't even know why I'm writing this down or where it will go. It came to my mind a couple of days ago and, no matter what, I don't seem able to get rid of it. The truth is, however, that I have a thousand of things to do for my university course in the next few months, so I don't really know how often this will be updated or even how long this will be. Yet, if you want to give it a try and follow it (at your own risk!), feel free to do it!
> 
> The usual warning: I'm a non-native English speaker and this is definitely not beta-ed. If you spot any mistake, let me know!
> 
> Now, enjoy your reading and leave kudos/comments if you like!
> 
> NocturnoCulto (who's chasing unreal dragons in her too much real life)

'I am truly sorry, John,' Greg said.

John barely raised his gaze to look at the First Knight. He was too intent on staring at the black piece of marble before his eyes. Purple, yellow and red danced in blurred patterns on the cold stone, giving a sparkle of life where only death existed.

'I should've--' Greg continued.

John stopped him. 'We all should have, Greg,' he said.

Wild red roses lay scattered on the floor, covering the unreadable names of generations of ancestors. Red roses to symbolise bloodshed. Wild roses because she had been wild in every sense of the word. Their smell permeated the air of the small chapel, a pungent bittersweet odour which mixed with the vague reek of putrefaction. They were to be burnt at the end of the ceremony, so the tradition said. A red fire of scarlet flowers to erase sins, to purify the soul, to elevate the spirit to the Afterworld.

John hated the roses. He had always hated them. When he was seven or eight he had fallen into his mother's rose garden, and it had taken four servants and a thousand of screams to get rid of all the thorns pierced into his skin. At eleven he had eaten - it had been his older sister's doing - a poisonous berry from a rosebush and had almost died. And now roses surrounded the black sarcophagus of his deceased wife.

 _Queen Mariana_ read the name carved in the marble.

' _It's such a pretentious name_ ,' she had said the first time they met. _'Not even my mother calls me Mariana anymore. Call me Mary instead._ '

And he had nodded, already entranced by those blue eyes which never seemed to rest. Now those eyes rested, shut forever under the cold stone.

The High Priest entered the chapel. He wore the mourning long white robe which hid his features from neck to toe and held the sanctified stick in his right hand. Behind him walked three young acolytes, their whole figure hidden underneath a silver tunic which left only the eyes visible. They all held torches that flickered weakly in the motionless air. It was a procession of living ghosts.

The High Priest reached John beside the sarcophagus.

'Come,' he said. 'It is time.'

John stared at the name once more. He stared at the figure engraved on the marble and he didn't recognise his wife in it.

The High Priest put his left hand on John's shoulder and John, gathering all his strength, eventually moved away.

The three acolytes encircled the sarcophagus, one at the top and two at the bottom, the vertexes of an imaginary triangle. They rose their torches up in the air and started singing the Funeral Hymn.

The High Priest raised the stick above his head holding it with both hands and intoned a chant - his voice grave and solemn, transcending the realm of the living - that was both harmonious and disharmonious with the Funeral Hymn.

It tore John's heart apart. His mind navigated through all the memories of Mary he had: the midsummer celebration when they had met, the winter solstice when their union was approved, the spring equinox when they had finally married, the birth of their daughter only three months before. The daughter who was now sleeping curled into Lady Hudson's arms, unaware that the world has just become a darker place for her, for her father and for everyone else in the kingdom.

He should have cried. He knew it. He felt tears gathering in his eyes, in his throat. But pride, as always, stopped him. He stayed there, numbed, but with his heart shouting, screaming, exploding into million pieces.

John stared as flames engulfed the black stone, saw the stone disappear behind a wall of red. Then the High Priest's magic engulfed red with white, brighter than the brightest star. In less than the blink of an eye, the sarcophagus was gone, Mary was gone. With it, gone was John's world. The only thing left: the smell of burnt roses and their black ashes on the white floor. And Rosa, his daughter, crying in Lady Hudson's arms, as if for a glimpse of a second, in her white innocence, she understood the sadness of life.

'She is with her ancestors now,' the High Priest said to him. 'Her accomplishments on this earth will shine forever in the starlit sky.'

John couldn't care less about the starlit sky and the ancestors. If he had to fight a horde of dead corpses and a bunch of galaxies to get Mary back, he would have. Oh, surely he would.

Lady Hudson came near, Rosa now calm in her lap, her tiny hands clutched around Lady Hudson's necklace.

John found the strength to smile at his daughter. He stretched his hand, moved Rosa's fingers away from the necklace and softly said, 'Be careful not to break Lady Hudson's family seal.'

'It's just an old, rusty thing,' Lady Hudson said. 'Not more important than this little creature here. You can play with it, Rosie, as much as you want.'

 _Rosie_ was Rosa's nickname. Like her mother before her, she had been pretentiously called _Rosa Mariana Angelica_ , but Mary had immediately turned the more serious _Rosa_ into the sweeter _Rosie_. Now that Mary was no more, John had gone back to using Rosa. It was less painful to utter.

He wished to say that he loved Rosa deeply. He wished to. But he felt like an invisible wall had been suddenly built between him and his daughter when Mary died. As much as he tried to reach to his daughter, he could only see her as a reflection of Mary's lost beauty. And it killed his heart in more ways than he thought possible.

'We have news,' Greg whispered to John, careful that Lady Hudson didn't hear.

John feigned attention to what Lady Hudson was saying but gave Greg a quick nod.

'I think Mary would have liked it,' Lady Hudson said. 'The funeral, I mean.'

'I think she would have rather not died,' John retorted.

'Yes, of course, I didn't mean...'

John took a deep breath. He knew that Lady Hudson didn't mean any harm. And yes, he knew that Mary would have liked it. He was simply tired. Tired of hearing condolences, tired of hearing apologies, tired of hearing panegyrics, tired of everything.

'No, sorry, Lady Hudson,' he said. 'I know what you meant, it's just—'

'You can't get your head around it?'

'Yes,' he said.

'You know, John, I lost two husbands and my oldest son. It will become easier. Not now, not tomorrow, not in a year. But it will. But Rosie needs a father. Grief will have to wait.'

John nodded as if he really believed those words.

They left the chapel together, then John excused himself.

Turning his back to her, John felt Lady Hudson's eyes fixed on him as if she could see through all the lies. As he walked to meet Greg and the others, he murmured to himself, 'I'm sorry, Lady Hudson. I'm truly sorry.'


	2. I Pray You All

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading the first chapter!
> 
> Somehow I managed to write the second one in a half-sleepless night, so here it is for you to enjoy!
> 
> NocturnoCulto

The small chamber was enveloped in darkness, the candles barely casting light on the oak table in the middle. The pale grey of the early afternoon seeped through two small windows shy and timid, as if it didn't want to disturb the holiness of the place.

Greg, Lady Donovan and Lord Anderson stood around the table, their voices echoing quietly in the chamber. They all stared at the map laid out before them, moving flags and pins as they continued the conversation.

It was Greg who eventually noticed John's presence.

'My Lord,' he said.

Lady Donovan and Lord Anderson glanced at him, both saying, 'My Lord.'

On the map, three red flags had been moved back since the last time he saw them.

'We've lost the Grange,' he said flatly. 'And it looks like we'll soon lose the post on the Wye River.'

'The Grange was lost on purpose,' Lady Donovan said, 'in order to save Alabaria. Queen Mary's strategy.'

_Mary_. She had always been the better strategist of the two. She had been born in a country marked by war; she grew under the shadow of the Glorious King, her father Frederick, the man who won the Five Years War and stabilised the realm. John, coming from the Mountain Territories, had only lived the echoes of the wars going on in the plains. He was a skilled warrior, nobody could deny that. But he lacked the logical, cold side. Mary, on the contrary, had been both an amazing fighter and the coldest calculator. All this while never forgetting her human side. Sacrificing a town or a battalion had never been an easy choice for her, but her spirit and presence during every battle had given soldiers and citizens alike the strength to fight on, resist, win when every hope seemed lost.

'What about the Wye?' John asked.

'It was unexpected,' Greg said. 'A dragon attacked Tweckham and we had to intervene. We couldn't hold both fronts at the same time and we had to retreat from the first post on the Wye. We might still be able to take it back.'

'Unless another _bloody dragon_ comes to the party,' Lord Anderson said.

_Dragons_. Bloody damn dragons. _Mythological creatures, bedtime stories to scare children, fantasies_. And everyone had believed these lies until a bloody dragon - yes, with wings and teeth and scales and what else - had materialised out of nowhere in the kingdom's skies. The only difference he could find between the supposedly mythological creatures and the dragons they were dealing with was the lack of fire coming out of their nostrils and mouths. Not that this _small_ detail made them less lethal. They still had claws and teeth that could pierce through everything.

And soon they had four dragons flying in the sky destroying everything they fancied to destroy. War and dragons. If it weren't his daily reality, John would think he was five again, listening to his old nanny's stories beside the fire.

The funniest part about these dragons? They could not be killed. Bedtime stories always had a knight in shining armour who killed the dragon and rescued the princess. But these damn creatures? No way. Spears, arrows, swords, fire: all wasted on them. And they continued to roam freely in the sky, bringing havoc whenever they felt like.

_Bloody dragons that killed my wife,_ John thought.

'About that,' Greg said. 'We've got news.'

'About the _Dragon Master_?' John, Lady Donovan and Lord Anderson said all together.

'Yes,' Greg said. 'Queen Mary's informant came back last night.'

'And?' John asked, impatient.

'I think it's better if you hear it directly,' Greg said. 'Come forth, H.'

From the farthest - and darkest - corner, a figure moved, making John and the other two knights start.

John had never met the informant before. He was part of Mary’s closed circle of people who answered to her and her only. He had heard of 'H' anyway, the most trusted of them all, the man who always brought back the most salient information, the man of impossible missions. He had, long time ago, been rather jealous of the relationship between the mysterious H and his wife, but Mary had dismissed his concerns with laughter.

When the figure clad in full black walked into the light, John understood why all his concerns had been stupid. H was a woman. And if surprise was on his face, the same could be said for Lady Donovan's and Lord Anderson's faces.

Her hair, wore in a long braid, was of a plain brown and so were her eyes. Her face, rosy and pale, was also plain. If Greg hadn't just introduced her as H, John would have _never_ guessed it. Yet, under the black clothes spotted with red mud, John could almost perceive the muscular frame of her body, he could recognise the shape of a long, thin dagger pressing against her thigh. H, he realised, was the perfect lethal weapon in disguise.

'My Lords,' she said. 'And Lady, of course.'

John, Lady Donovan and Lord Anderson looked at each other, then at H, then at each other again, then at Greg.

'H has the late Queen's seal,' Greg said, answering the trio's unspoken question.

H took something out of her bandolier and showed it to the group. A black, polished stone of the size of a child's hand with a golden lily carved into it. Mary's personal seal.

John nodded his approval, and H put the seal back, her fingers carefully unbuckling and buckling the small leather pouch across her waist.

The revelation and her cat-like movements had the effect to silence the small company even more, so much that the crackling of the burning torches could be heard.

It was a while until John found the voice to speak again.

'So you have news?'

'As you may already know,' she said, 'about a year ago, Queen Mary gave me orders to investigate the existence of a man some legends refer to as the _Dragon Master_.'

They all nodded.

'It's been a hard task. Every day, it felt like looking for a specific grain of sand in a whole desert. I travelled to Aegiria's capital city to consult their library but nothing came out of it - only vague echoes of people talking about other people who talked about people who might know something about him. I travelled to the northern borders of the Kingdom of Sherewood, following the indications of a Priest who was sure the Dragon Master had resided there. I reached the coastal town of Nahzar to find _nothing_ but a small reference in one of the local legends.'

John was growing impatient. What was the point of all this? Was that explanation really necessary?

'Sorry,' he said, giving voice to his thoughts. 'But what's the point of this?'

H looked at him and bowed slightly. 'Apologies, my Lord. Mary - I mean, the Queen - always wanted a detailed report of my wanderings.'

John believed it. Mary loved stories of far-away lands, exotic places she wanted to visit but couldn't, both the war and the title binding her to her country. Not that she didn't love her country; she would have given her life for it - which, ironically, she had ended up doing. But John remembered her utter envy when he had told her of the Walimere Lakes and of the Ossian Wood up in the Mountain Territories.

H's voice interrupted his thoughts.

'I'll come to the point,' she said. 'About seven weeks ago I reached the western border before the Great Desert. There is a village there - although it is more a mass of four or five huts swept by the desert wind - where the legend of the Dragon Master seems to permeate their culture. They have stories, folktales, and religious habits: all about the _Dragon Master_. They call him _Khuzarku_ and they say he lives in a cave of an oasis in the desert. I gathered all the information I could about him and compared it to the bits I had before. It fitted. Some reports mentioned the land of the _falling sun_ , and one in specific said _'he came from the island in the burning sea'_.  I firmly believed that the man called Khuzarku is the legendary Dragon Master and came back to communicate it to Mary - sorry, the Queen.'

John stared at her, perplexed. 'Why did you come back? Why didn't you go to find him?'

H lowered her gaze for the first time. 'My orders were to _investigate_ about the man's existence and come back if I had any lead. The orders were never to find him personally.'

'Why?'

H bit her lips and was evidently uncomfortable. But she looked straight into John's eyes and said, 'The Queen wanted to go to him by herself. That's why my task ended with proving his existence. _Never_ was I requested to meet him. _Never_.' She fiddled with her pocket and extracted a yellowish piece of paper folded in four. She handed it to John. 'If you don't believe me.'

John opened it, Mary's handwriting unfolding before his eyes.

 

_Your task will be only to ascertain yourself of the existence of the man. Never forget that. Never attempt to contact him or go to him by yourself. That will be my task. We do not know the man and I do not want you to put yourself into any further danger. As soon as you get any information on his existence and whereabouts, come back._

_M._

 

John read the note twice. It took him a great deal of strength to realise that Mary - his Mary - had already decided everything without letting him know her true plan. Yes, of course he knew about his wife's _obsession_ with finding the Dragon Master, but he had never thought she would undertake the task herself.

'Could you three leave us alone?' John asked Greg and the others.

They stared at each other for a second, undecided about what to do as if they all expected him to react violently, as if they feared something bad was going to happen.

'I won't kill her, for the Ancient's sake!' John shouted. 'But I need to talk to her.'

Greg nodded, and the three left.

As the door clicked shut behind Greg's back, John collapsed on the nearest chair. H stood still waiting for words that didn't seem to come. And truth was that John had no idea why he had sent the others out, had no idea about what he wanted to ask, had no idea why he was still clinging so hard on his wife's memory. And he was confused, and sad, and angry. And it burnt like a volcano had just poured tons of magma on him.

'So, H...' he started.

'Molly,' she said.

'What?'

'My name's Molly, my Lord.'

'Did my wife call you--?'

'The Queen always called me _Molly_.'

'And I guess you called her Mary.'

The woman nodded. 'We were friends,' she said. 'We grew up together. My father was her father's right-hand man. It felt natural that I became her right-hand woman.'

'And yet nobody knows who you are...' John said to himself, desperately trying to persuade himself that H - Molly - was some kind of impostor and that Mary hadn't really meant to go alone looking for a legend.

'It's not that easy to know me, no matter how long you've lived here,' she said. 'My father was part of the Secret Guard and as a member he lived his life in complete secrecy. He married my mother in secrecy and my mother had to swear an oath never to tell anyone who my father was. My mother died when I was two, and I grew up with my father from that moment on, training when he trained, studying when he was away on a mission. I also had to swear the Oath in order to protect my father's life. I became a member of the Secret Guard almost unconsciously. It simply fitted. Mary disbanded the Guard when she ascended the throne. She thought it was too burdensome for its members, always having to lie, always pretending. She only kept three members: my father and other two. When my father died, I took his place. Mary said no and no, but it was my duty, it had been for a long while. But nobody knew my face outside Mary's circle. Nobody.'

'So nobody can actually confirm who you are.'

'Well, I showed you the seal and the note, my Lord.'

'They could be fake. All this could be a fabrication.'

'You know someone named H was sent to look for the Dragon Master, don't you?'

John nodded. 'Yes, I know. Mary told me she sent _H_ for the mission.'

'And I'm here, reporting exactly on what she asked. Isn't that proof?'

'You could be a spy. You could've killed the real H and took his place knowing that no one can confirm H's identity.'

'Pardon my insolence, my Lord, but why are you so concerned about my identity? Is it, perhaps, because of Mary wanting to go and meet the man herself?'

Something clicked inside John's mind in that exact moment. All the subterfuges, all the little lies, all the things that Mary had never told him but had told to someone who John saw as a _perfect stranger_. It was a bubble that suddenly burst in the deepest recesses of his brain.

'How could she do that! How could she!' John sprung up and closed the distance between him and H. 'How could she decide all by herself? Why never a word?'

Those same tears that his pride had swallowed down in the chapel came out in a torrential downpour.

'Why did she go alone on that battlefield? Why? I should've been there with her! But no! She told me _everything was going to be alright_. And she's dead! Dead!'

H stood motionless. 'My Lord, Mary loved you,' she said, almost a whisper. 'But she loved her people too. And she didn't want you or her subjects to suffer. That's why she wanted to go herself. That's why she wanted to leave and look for the man _by herself_.'

John looked at H like she were a mysterious creature.

'You lost your wife, my Lord,' she continued, 'but I lost my dearest friend. And I'll always feel guilty for not having been here, fighting by her side.'

The plain, calm face of H gave way to tears slowly running down her cheeks.

'I'm sorry,' John said, not having better words. ‘I’m sorry.’

They stayed in silence opposite one another, fighting a wordless battle against the sadness that raged inside their hearts.

It was John who spoke again.

'Did she know she was pregnant? When she told you she wanted to go herself?'

Her unchanged expression gave John the answer before H spoke.

'She _suspected_ it. She wasn't certain.'

John went straight to the door and called the others back in. He had just made a decision. A decision nobody would like.

When all were around the table once again, John said, 'You've heard what H told us. You've heard - and I read - what was Mary's will.' He turned to H. 'First, I want to thank you for your services and loyalty, H. The Kingdom is your debtor. No matter how this will end.'

She thanked him with a bow.

He turned to Lord Anderson. 'Lord Anderson,' he said. 'I want you to replace Lady Donovan in her role as High Commander of the Army. You will have her powers in full. You will, from now on, lead our army against the enemy.'

Both Greg and Lady Donovan said, 'But, my Lord--'

'Please,' he said, shutting them up. He turned to Lady Donovan. 'Lady Donovan, you are now appointed First Knight in place of Lord Lestrade. You will have his powers in full and your task will be to direct both the government and the war.'

Greg and Lady Donovan stared at each other, their eyes showing their confusion. But nobody spoke.

'Lord Lestrade, Greg,' he said and paused for a second. This was the hardest part. 'First, I want to thank you for your constant support, your unmatched friendship and for all your precious advice. From the very first moment Mary introduced me to you, I was aware of your valour. There is no one else in this realm who stands above you.'

He took a second break.

'Lord Lestrade, I know what I am about to ask you will be difficult, I know that I am putting on your shoulders a burden heavier than a million of armours, I know that. But I cannot think of anyone more suitable than you. From this moment on, Lord Lestrade, you will be the ruler in my absence. I'm going to follow Mary's decision. I'm going to find the Dragon Master myself.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long explanatory chapter, by the way!   
> I promise more interesting stuff in the chapters to come!


	3. My Lief is Faren in Londe

Five weeks had passed since Greg shouted at him after everybody had left the room.

_'You can't, John! You can't! You have a daughter!'_

He had tried to explain, of course he had tried. 

_'It's Mary's decision! She put the safety of her kingdom above her daughter!'_

It hadn't mattered to Greg.

_'And she died because of this! She DIED!'_

As if he didn't know. A bitter smile had curved his lips.

_'As if I don't know, Greg!'_

But Greg had insisted.

_'It is your daughter, for the Ancient's sake! It is your kingdom!'_

John had insisted too.

_'It was Mary's kingdom, not mine! And I must finish what she started!'_

Greg hadn't listened.

_'Let H go then! Let me go!'_

He had been adamant.

_'It is my duty!'_

Greg had shouted louder.

_'No, it's not, John! Get it! You're just trying to escape!'_

He had - he still felt sorry for it - grabbed Greg by the throat.

_'And what if I am trying to escape? What, Greg?'_

The image of Greg's pleading eyes, he knew, would accompany his nightmares - along with a black sarcophagus - for the rest of his life.

_'John, please. Just please.'_

John had slammed the door behind him, leaving Greg alone. That same night he had kissed goodbye to his daughter and had exited the capital. 

He hadn't even taken two steps outside the city's doors that Greg had appeared from a dark nook.

_'I knew you were leaving tonight. I suppose I can't do anything anymore about it. I can't do anything at all.'_

John had shaken his head. Greg had bowed before him.

_'Good luck, then, my Prince.'_

John had waited for him to stand up again, had turned around and had hugged him.

_'Take care of Rosa. Take care of everything. And thank you. For everything.'_

Now it was all a blurred memory inside his head, as if months - even years - had passed, not five weeks. 

The journey, despite his fears, had so far been smooth. He had crossed the western borders of his kingdom three weeks earlier, had gone through the marshland of the Avalanii's Territories and had finally reached the Zuali Kingdom, the last Kingdom before the endless expanse of the Great Desert. The Zuali Kingdom stretched from the Ocean in the north to the Mountain Territories in the south, from the Great Desert in the west to the Avalanii's Territories in the east. 

It was the first time John had ever been there. 

The echoes of the Eastern War could be seen even in such a distant place. Poverty and famine - also caused by the unstoppable advance of the Great Desert - plagued the land. While crossing the first villages, he had seen corpses rotting on the roads, men and women whose bones seemed to pierce a thin layer of skin, children who looked like skeletal ghosts. 

Food was often hard to find and he considered himself lucky, having money to buy what he needed.

He had tried to share his food with the natives, but they had all refused stubbornly. 

Now that he had finally reached Ossabella, the capital city, he was having the umpteenth discussion about food with a woman. Her Common Tongue was broken and he had a hard time understanding what she was saying, but the heart of the matter was always the same: she didn't want _any_ food for her three starving children. 

'No,' she said. 'No food. We ok.'

'But it's for your children! Look at them!'

'No,' she repeated. 'No food.'

'It's useless,' someone said behind him. 'They won't accept it. Not even when they are on the brink of death.'

John turned to see a merchant sitting under the shadow of his tent. Pots of different sizes and colours lay scattered on an old, consumed rag spread open midway across the street. 

He wore the traditional clothes of the Zuali - baggy white trousers, a long sleeveless blue shirt and a turban on his head - but his skin was pale, almost as white as the trousers. 

'Sorry?' John asked.

'I said it's useless,' the man repeated. 

The woman took her chance to slip away.

'No, wait!' John said and set to stop her.

But again the merchant echoed, 'It's useless. The moment she'll turn around the corner, you'll lose her.'

John didn't listen to the man and followed the woman. No matter what, those three kids needed food. And John's mission was to give them food. But the merchant's words were prophetic: she turned around the corner only a second before John did, but she was nowhere to be seen a second later. John looked around, baffled.

'Told you,' the merchant shouted.

John was well beyond the line that separated his patience and his anger. He huffed and continued on his road, leaving the merchant and his pottery behind.

After a small tour of the intricate roads of the city's centre in which he tried to forget both the woman and the obnoxious merchant, John went back to his small inn. 

He had been stupid enough, in his haste to leave the realm, not to ask the name of the village where H had been. And now he literally had no idea where to go. 

Most of the people didn't seem to be keen on foreigners and whichever question he asked, it was usually welcomed with either vague answers or long sentences in Zuali even though the person had spoken the Common Tongue until seconds before. 

Going to the Ossabella's regal library also seemed off limit. You had either to be a Zuali or get a permission from the Government. But permissions were allowed only to renowned scholars or aristocrats. He was the latter but he didn't want to arouse suspicion around him, lest he had been spied on. The conclusion? No library.

Throwing himself on the bed, he wondered how H had managed it. She had skills unknown to him. Sure she had been doing that job and living that life for a long time, and John was just an ordinary warrior with no aptitude for heroic quests, but it gave him a sense of utter powerlessness.

He fell asleep thinking about how long had taken H to discover all the stuff she had discovered.

It was late evening when he woke up and went downstairs to ask for some food. 

The innkeeper, a sturdy man with a thick moustache, gave him a bowl with what looked like pork drowning in a slimy red sauce. 

John turned up his nose. He didn't have any problems with the local _cuisine_ , but _that_ looked inedible. But he had no choice. It was either that or hunger. 

'Drink?' he asked.

The innkeeper handed him a cup with an amber liquid which smelled like the inside of Laudinum Castle’s stables.

He had learnt, as soon as he had entered the Zuali Kingdom, that complaining was useless: nobody ever listened to him. So he went to sit down, bowl and cup in his hands. Around him, a dozen of patrons laughed, talked and didn’t pay any attention to him.

He silently ate the first bit of pork; the taste was a perfect match to its aspect: horrible, like old shoes with a hint of smoked wood. He looked at the drink in the cup and wondered whether drinking it would actually improve or worsen everything. 

He was still debating when his eyes fell on the corner opposite him. Alone at one table near a stained-glass window sat a figure that looked familiar to John. 

The man was intent on reading a book, bent slightly forward on the pages, right elbow resting on the table, right hand playing with a curl which fell on the forehead.

It took John a second - and a third - examination to understand that the man was the merchant he had met that afternoon. 

Driven by sudden curiosity, John walked to him.

'Evening,' he said, stressing each letter as he was used to do to make himself understood.

The merchant raised his eyes from the book. 'You know I can speak the Common Tongue quite well, right?'

John blushed. He didn't know if he had ever blushed before - at least he couldn't remember any occasion - but he was definitely blushing now.

'Yes,' he said. 'Sorry, it's just a habit I got here, else most people will not understand.'

The man laughed. 'You underestimate them.'

'Underestimate?'

'I think you've already discovered that they don't quite like foreigners.'

_Without doubt_ , John thought.

‘The truth is,’ the merchant continued, ‘that most of them understand and speak the Common Tongue well enough. They just don't want to have anything to do with you.'

John sighed. 'I suspected it.'

'And I also see that Angelo gave you his _go-away-stranger_ welcome,' the man said.

'The what?'

The merchant indicated John's bowl. 'That _thing._ I call it the " _go-away-stranger"._ Nobody can resist two days of that slop.' The man raised his hand and snapped his fingers. 'Angelo!’

The innkeeper immediately looked in their direction. How it was possible that he heard the call in such a noisy room was beyond John’s comprehension.

'And, please, do sit down,' the merchant told John.

When the innkeeper arrived at the table he looked at John, then at the merchant and said, 'I didn't know he was your friend.’

He said that with such a perfect Common Tongue diction that John couldn’t believe his ears. Considering how mind-bogglingly difficult had been each piece of conversation John had had with him, John suddenly felt like he was the dumbest man in the universe. And maybe he was.

The innkeeper then switched back to Zuali and started talking with the merchant. John understood nothing of the conversation. His Zuali didn't go beyond four or five words he had learnt while travelling. He simply stared at the merchant and the innkeeper, raptured by the musical mystery that was the Zuali language to him.

'What would you like to eat?' asked the merchant all of a sudden.

The spell was broken.

'Eh?' John said, confused. 

'Food,' said the merchant, rather amused. 'Or do you want to keep eating that _thing_?

'John laughed. He didn't know how it happened - he felt like he hadn't laughed in ages - but there he was, laughing about a bowl full of slimy pork. 'No, thanks.’

The merchant smiled. 'So, what do you want?'

'I don't know. What do they have?'

The merchant turned to the innkeeper and said something quickly. The innkeeper nodded, took John's bowl and disappeared.

'What?' John said.

'I hope you don't mind me ordering for you.'

'I don't. But you should have done something for my drink too. It smells...' John sniffed it again, '...it smells like _piss._ '

The merchant's mouth turned into a knowing grin. 'That's the traditional drink here,' he said. 'You just need some _sukkar_ in it.'

' _Sukkar_?'

'It sweetens things,' the merchant explained and grabbed a small pot on the table's side that John hadn't noticed until now. He took out a small wooden spoon with a granular substance that looked like sand. 'This is _sukkar_.'

'Oh,' John said, entranced. 

The merchant put two spoons of it in John's amber drink and magic happened. Well, not real magic, not anything like the High Priest's magic. But he lacked better words to describe it. The white substance melted immediately in the liquid and its smell changed from _piss_ to _garden-of-flowers_ in a glimpse.

John realised he had a stupid expression on his face because the merchant had the smuggest grin ever.

'Here it is,' the merchant said, still smugly.

The innkeeper came back and put down a wooden plate. Small sausages in a brown sauce, brown rice, peas, chickpeas, carrots and cottage cheese lay on it. 

'Oh, wow,' he said.

The merchant grinned again. 

'Thanks,' John said to the innkeeper.

'His friends are _my friends_ ,' the innkeeper answered.

'Now,' the merchant said as John took the first mouthful of sausage - which tasted delicious. 'Hvorfor er du her?'

'Hva? Kan du--?' John said before realising he had slipped into his mother tongue.

'Ja,' the merchant simply said.

'And how do you know--?'

'That you are from the Mountain Territories? Although I suspect you've spent your last years living in the Kingdom of Laudinum.'

John gaped in amazement, but a hint of suspicion crossed his mind. Was the man a spy? Had he been following John? 

'It's easy to recognise accents when you're a merchant,' the man said. 'Your use of the Common Tongue is impressive. It means that you've lived for a while in a place where the Common Tongue is the ordinary means of expression. So, one of the Eastern Kingdoms. Yet you've retained a bit of your native language of the Mountain Territories in the way you pronounce your _R_ s.'

'Impressive,' John said and he meant it.

But his mind - despite the perfectly sound explanation - was not at ease. There was something in the man's ways that kept John alert. Nothing major, just _something_. Something that transpired from his smug grin, from the way he spoke, from his ice blue eyes (and why was he noticing the man’s eyes anyway?). They reminded John of the ice-covered peaks surrounding his hometown. And, like the old legends of his country about glaciers, the man's eyes seemed to possess a _dismal sheen._ Perhaps it was their glimmering in the dim-lit room, perhaps it was just John’s imagination, but he felt both comfortable and uncomfortable in looking at them. 

'It's a basic merchant’s skill,' the man said. 'Travelling around the country widens your perspective. Most merchants can easily recognise the origins of people; it is in the trade. Nothing _impressive_ in it.'

'I think it is,' John said. 'I can't even tell if one man's accent differs from another's. And you can exactly pinpoint where people come from.'

And John meant it. But it hadn't escaped him that the man had first mentioned the Kingdom of Laudinum and then switched to a more generic _Eastern Kingdoms_. And that was John's hold.

'You said _Kingdom of Laudinum_ ,' John said and observed the merchant's reaction.

Which didn't came. Either he was the best liar John had ever met or he had been sincere since the beginning. John couldn't decide, although he somehow _wanted_ to trust him.

'Ah, that,' the merchant said. 'It's the same. Your Common Tongue also shows signs of the Laudinum's dialect.'

John frowned. 'Which signs?'

'You tend to eat your syllables.’

John laughed as he remembered how, ages ago, he had made fun of Mary for her way of eating half of the words when talking. 

The merchant stared at him as if he had just gone insane, his eyes two fixed points in the suffused lighting of the inn. 

'Sorry,' John said. 'It's true. I do that.'

Laughing twice in a single evening wasn't bad. It made him feel strangely alive after what had seemed an eternity of darkness. 

Neither of the two spoke for a while after that. John kept eating and the merchant went back to reading his book. John observed him. He was slender. Slender his neck, his collar bones evident above the hem of his blue shirt. Slender his fingers, elongated like birches' branches on the yellow page of the book. Slender his whole figure under the clothes. And he was young, younger than John. 

_How old can he be? Twenty? No, he would be too young to be a merchant. Maybe thirty,_ John thought but couldn't quite make up his mind. 

The man's slenderness and his lack of muscles gave John a slight reassurance that the man probably _wasn't_ a spy. Yet he didn't seem a merchant either. And, of course, he wasn't a Zuali.

'Where do you come from?' John asked.

The man raised his eyes from the book but said nothing.

John continued, 'I'm not as good as you at guessing places--'

'It's not guessing,' the man said. 'It's _a skill_. If I have to sell a product I need to know my clients' tastes. If you come from the north you're unlikely to buy furs and potions to ignite fire quickly, right?'

‘Fine then,' John said. 'I’m not a merchant and I don’t have that skill. I told you, I can't even distinguish between accents. So, where are you from? It's clear that you're not a Zuali.'

'I don't know,' the merchant said.

'You _don't know_?'

'I'm an orphan.'

John made a face. He didn't expect that.

'Oh,' the merchant continued, 'nothing dramatic or lachrymose. Both my father and my mother died before I could form memories of them. The first memory I have is the city of Mellom in the north - I was four, I think - and an old merchant took me under his protective wing. I’ve been travelling since that day, so you might say I have no fixed origins. But I’ve been here for a while, so you might say I’m more of a Zuali than anything else.’

'Do you like it here?'

'It's better than living in the East right now. And I never quite liked the ocean in the north.'

'What about the Mountain Territories?'

'I lived there for a while, but I don't like the new ruler.'

'Who does?'

The merchant grinned. 'Not you, it seems.'

John grinned back. 'Not you either.'

'Well, what takes a man from the East here?'

John swallowed. He hadn't expected the question. No, that was a lie. He had dreaded it from the very beginning. He had the answer. He had painstakingly invented a perfectly plausible answer. But until now he had kept away from any company and had never had to tell anyone. And he felt slightly upset he had to suddenly lie. Not that he had any other choice.

'I'm a scholar,' he blurted out.

'A scholar?'

'Yes. I'm an expert in folklore and local customs, and I'm researching the different aspects of superstition and mythology in the area,' John said, then took his chance. It didn't matter if the man was a spy or not. He felt the merchant was his only way to get the right information. 'I've been told that there's a village on the Great Desert's border that has completely different traditions and I would like to visit it. However, because of a misunderstanding, I cannot access the library and cannot find whether the village is real or not.'

The merchant didn’t move a finger during John’s talk, contenting himself with staring at John's every movement, seemingly weighing each of John’s words on an invisible scale.

John's heart beat fast in his chest. First, he had just exposed himself to a potential threat. Second, that man still had _something_ John couldn't quite grab.

'Interesting,' the merchant said. 'What was the misunderstanding?'

Ok. That was new. He had not a ready-made answer to that. He made it up, hoping it didn't sound as fake as it sounded in his head.

'Well, not _really_ a misunderstanding,' John said. 'Turns out I lost my permission somewhere and can’t get a new one.'

The man stood up. 'I might be able to help you,' he said. 'Come and see me tomorrow.'

He made for the exit, leaving John rather dumbfounded. It took John a second to realise that he had never asked the merchant’s name nor had the merchant told John where to find him.

'Sorry, your name? And where tomorrow?' John shouted.

'The name is Sherlock. I’ll be at the Alahar Market the whole day.'


	4. Sprâhhûs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the support shown in the last months, and sorry if it took so long for the update (deadlines came too soon and I can't write when under pressure :/), but I hope you'll enjoy this chapter!
> 
> NocturnoCulto

Some days, John had to admit, were better than others.

He woke up with the first light of day seeping through the window, a vague sensation of warmth enveloping him like a cocoon. He rolled on the left, looking for Mary's comfortable embrace.

He met the hardwood floor with a thump.

'For the Ancient's sake!'

Some days were definitely worse.

\--@--

Alahar Market, a chaotic labyrinth of narrow alleys, multi-coloured stands and endless chattering, stood in the western - and oldest - part of Ossabella. Whitewashed houses that had been standing for the last five centuries ran along the streets. On them, oriel windows lined with blue stained glass reflected the bright sun and created soft plays of light on the opposite buildings.

To John it felt like walking inside one of those exotic tales his nanny used to read him. Those in which a princess with black, silky hair ran away with a thief; or those in which a prince, tired of his life, decided to become a merchant and travel the world.

He was fascinated by the place. He was fascinated by the smells of spices, by the colours of the silk, by the tingling of silver pots where chà was brewed. He was fascinated by the tall women with braided black hair with ornaments of gold in it, by the flower patterns on their naked arms, by the water pots balanced on their heads. He was fascinated by the muscular men with well-trimmed beards, by the multiple rings adorning their ears, by the long, white kaftans floating around their bodies.

In that place, the misery of war, the famine, the poverty seemed inexistent. As if the hot desert wind that blew through the narrow bends of Alahar Market had swept everything away.

To add mystery to that magical place, John soon discovered that the mere mention of the name Sherlock turned even the most recalcitrant man into an outburst of chatter. Three conversations in - only to ask about Sherlock's whereabouts in that labyrinthine market - and he had been invited to two birthday parties and one religious ceremony, had been offered food and various drinks, had been given four different lucky charms. All this accompanied by the stock sentence: 'Sherlock's friends are my friends.'

But none of the men had been able to tell him where Sherlock's stand was located.

'He changes often,' the first man had said.

'He's usually in the southern part, but sometimes he's up in the north,' the second man had said.

The third man - who had pretended that John was somehow invisible and had refused talking to him until the word Sherlock had left John's lips, and had then immediately invited him and Sherlock to a coming-of-age ceremony at the temple - had said, 'I don't know. He's usually near Tahla's stand. But he changes sometimes.'

Now he was speaking with a woman who sold strange brown fruits she called datil. She offered him one, again with the same: 'Sherlock's friends are my friends.'

He wondered how a merchant could enjoy such fame.

'Do you know where his stand is?'

'He's near Tahla's stand, just down there,' she said and pointed to her right. 'Go down the street. Five minutes from here. He's on the left side.'

_Finally_ , he thought, _I was starting to lose hope I'd ever find him._

He thanked the woman and took the handful of fruit she offered him.

Squeezing through the crowd, John followed the woman's directions and, exactly five minutes later, found the merchant sitting under a blue tent, his pottery on the usual consumed rug. He was talking to a grey-bearded man and - although John couldn't get a word - it was clear from his fast, agitated talking that Sherlock was trying to persuade the old man to buy a vase.

John stayed at a distance, observing the scene. Sherlock took the vase in his hands, his fingers caressing the bottom, tapping on the sides. The customer nodded, took the vase in his hands and looked on the inside. Sherlock grabbed a cup with multi-coloured stripes and kept talking while the other man analysed the vase. Seemingly happy with the results of his analysis, the man took out three silver coins from his pouch and handed them to Sherlock who smiled and thanked the man.

John reached Sherlock's stand. 'Was that a good one?' he asked.

Sherlock put away the silver coins. 'Could've asked for four,' he simply said, then added: 'I thought you got lost.'

'Well, you didn't tell me this place was this big.'

The smug grin of the previous evening reappeared on the merchant's lips.

'You did it _on purpose_!'

'I was simply verifying a theory,' Sherlock said.

'What theory?'

His grin grew wider. 'I'll tell you later.'

John understood too quickly that such answer wanted no further questioning.

He looked at the pottery on the rug. A black bowl with a white geometric pattern caught his attention. He kneeled down and stared at it.

‘Do you like it?' Sherlock asked.

'It is...different,' he said. 'But strangely beautiful.'

'It's twelve dinars,' Sherlock said.

'Twelve dinars? Wow, that's _a lot_!'

'It's a rarity. And it will serve to get a man's attention.'

'A man's attention?'

'You said you needed information about a village in the west, right?'

'I wouldn't be here today if I didn't.'

'The man who will show interest in that bowl is the man we need to talk to,' Sherlock said.

'Oh,' John said, quite unable to understand how Sherlock's plan worked but quite trusting it at the same time.

'It will be a long wait,' the merchant added. 'He's never here before mid-afternoon, so, please, do come under the tent if you don't want to boil under the sun.'

John gladly accepted the invitation. He carefully avoided hitting any of the pottery and sat down beside the merchant, both their backs leaning on the wall of the house behind them.

In the light of day, John noticed, the merchant seemed slightly different. Gone were the otherworldly features which had struck John so much the previous evening. A white turban covered the black wild hair, leaving just one rebellious curl fall down the merchant's cheek, and the eyes, lined with black makeup, had lost their strange glimmering.

'Do you make all these?' John asked.

'No,' Sherlock answered. 'I'm just a trader. I go from village to village and buy stuff at a fair price and sell them at Ossabella or Zakath. This year pottery seems to sell pretty well, so that's why you only see pottery on my rug, but I usually have various goods - from jewellery to clothes to books.'

'No food?' John said picking one datil to eat it - they were, he discovered, delicious.

'Have you noticed how many food merchants are here?'

'With all the people I've seen starving through the country, I'm amazed at their numbers.'

'Alahar is for the rich. Two thirds of the population are starving, but the one third who comes to Alahar is rich enough to buy food in abundance. Not only that, they want to buy the best. So, either you have the best food or you're doomed. And it's really difficult to have the best, believe me. That's why I offer things that other merchants cannot offer.'

'That's why these things are so good,' John said, still savouring the datil.

'Where did you buy them?'

'I didn't. A woman gave them to me. I don't know her name - she has a stand up there, about five minutes from here.'

'Long black hair and a red dress?'

'Yes.'

'Sahama,' Sherlock said.

'What?'

'Her name is Sahama. You're lucky. She's got some of the best datils in the Zuali Kingdom.'

John agreed. 'She gave them to me for free after I mentioned your name,' he said. 'How come that you're so popular? I mean, your name seems to be the key to locked doors - or, in my case, Zuavi people.'

Sherlock took some dried leaves out of his pocket, crushed them in a small glass cup, added a transparent, gelatinous substance, and put the result in his mouth. He seemed so absorbed in the process that John asked himself if he ever heard what he had just said at all.

'He's famous,' the woman in the stand next to Sherlock's said in his stead. 'He always has the best pottery and knows things.'

'Knows things?' John asked.

He was curious. He couldn't deny that. That merchant had an eerie influence on him and John had to admit that he was fascinated by him. Yet fascinated wasn't the right word. It was a mixture of curiosity, interest, fascination and fear. Curiosity because he was different from any other person John had ever met. Interest because Sherlock seemed to know more than he disclosed. Fascination because it was like being under a spell: being able to see the person but not quite able to get the whole picture. Fear because he could still be the enemy, a spy sent to check on his every movement or, worse, an assassin sent to kill him.

'Just shut up, Tahla,' Sherlock said, his voice strangely relaxed. 'I know nothing. It's just gossip going around.'

The woman laughed. 'Yes, yes. Sure. To each his own secrets! Speaking of which...who's him? Another secret?'

'He's a scholar, Tahla. Try not to scare him.'

'My name's John, ma'am,' John said. 'Nice to meet you.'

'See, Sherlock, you should learn some good manners from him.'

The merchant huffed. 'Whatever, Tahla. Haven't you had enough of your husband's mistress?'

The woman opened her eyes wide, evidently shocked. 'How dare you! You...'

But she didn't finish her sentence. She threw the rag she was holding on the ground and immediately left the stand.

John followed her with the eyes until she got eaten by the pressing crowd.

John turned to Sherlock who was still peacefully chewing.

'Her husband's mistress?'

'Everyone knows it. It's not a secret. She knows it too,' Sherlock said.

'But knowing is one thing, saying it out loud is different.'

'She gets told at least twice a day. And usually not by me.'

'Still--' John tried to continue but was interrupted.

'Our man is coming,' Sherlock said, indicating a bald and fat man advancing like a hippopotamus through the crowd. 'Earlier than I thought.'

The man was huge. Huge in a sense John could not describe with words. He was tall, taller than any man John knew. Even taller - if his memory wasn't playing tricks on him - than his friend Norstorm, a huge guy who was almost twice as tall as John. And he was round, a peculiar breed between an elephant, a fat hippopotamus and a rhinoceros. His arms - both of the dimensions of a sheep - swung around his massive body like lethal weapons swung on the hips of a hitman. His steps seemed to make the ground shake.

Yet, when he reached Sherlock's stand, he seemed to shrink, his massive body reduced to impotence.

He greeted Sherlock with a voice that John thought similar to an ass's bray. The merchant answered with a smile and a small bow of the head, a deference which John hadn't expected from a man who had just blurted out the private life of a woman.

The man, like Sherlock had predicted, showed interest in the bowl. He took it, balanced it on one of his hands, caressed the inside with his finger - which totally looked like sausages, John thought.

Sherlock nodded profusely, answered question after question, talked fast and excitedly.

Then the man turned to John. 'Is he him?' the man asked in a heavily accented Common Tongue.

'Yes,' Sherlock answered.

'Tonight at seven?' the man said.

'We would be delighted. Right, John?'

It took John a second to realise what was going on. Not that he had understood everything. On the contrary he felt most details were missing.

But Sherlock's glance hinted that he had to answer yes.

'Yes, of course,' he said and bowed slightly.

'Nice,' the man said. 'I'll take this.' He grabbed the bowl and paid Sherlock as if twelve dinars were breadcrumbs. 'See you tonight,' he said turning his back and walking away.

'You are lucky,' Sherlock said after the man was distant enough.

'Lucky?'

'He likes you.'

' _Likes_?'

'When did you revert to monosyllabic conversation?' the merchant said, sneering. 'Yes, he likes you. Quite rare. He doesn't usually like people who aren't useful to him.'

'I understand,' John said.

'No, you don't,' Sherlock answered. 'But it doesn't matter. As far as he likes you, everything's fine.'

John was puzzled once more. 'Have you just traded a bowl for a meeting at seven?'

'No, I haven't. The bowl was just the appetiser. A whole meal has still to be served,' the merchant said, leaving John even more confused. He stood up, shook the sand off his trousers and added: 'I'll come at the inn at six. You'll need clothes for the evening. I'll get them for you.'

'Well, thanks.'

'You're welcome,' Sherlock said. 'Now, that purchase made my day. I'll call it off for today. And I have stuff to do anyway. You can go if you want.'

John didn't want to, but the tone of the merchant seemed to suggest that he didn't want him around anymore. He asked himself why but kept it to himself. If he wanted information he had to abide by their rules.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully, I'll be able to write the next chapter soon-ish, but I've got exams and books to read, so I can't make promises. But I promise I'll try my hardest to give the chapter to you :)


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